tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post3017607011420987792..comments2015-03-31T08:42:38.610-07:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Arthur Tress: City of Ashes ("Ashamed of my eyes that behold it")Zephirinenoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-16012632154335819612013-03-02T05:42:27.250-08:002013-03-02T05:42:27.250-08:00Nick,
Many thanks, glad to hear from you. That m...Nick, <br /><br />Many thanks, glad to hear from you. That magic of cities, I once felt it too, as a kid growing up in Chicago; but already then, the chance it might be a dark magic was as close as the street on any given night. Later I lived in Cleveland, Detroit, not much magic there, then in many cities round the world (London, Paris), each with its peculiar attractions, lights and darknesses. Being old now, I am at my last stop, and I don&#39;t much care for the city I live in now; having been run over by a careless driver eleven months ago, and nearly killed, hasn&#39;t helped. What the Tress portfolio reminds me of most strikingly is the class/money arrangements of large cities, whereby the waste and detritus are conveniently offloaded into adjacent areas, those populated by the less well-to-do, or, of course the least-well-to-do of all, nature&#39;s creatures. You don&#39;t see the ash heaps, incinerator dumps, oil leakage, raw sewage flow &amp; c. in, for example, midtown Manhattan, or in the Hamptons.<br /><br />It&#39;s hard to call attention to these things without seeming a terrible bore, these days. Nobody wants to see the consequences of the way they live, if they can help it. Money of course being the very best way to help it.<br /><br />But even as I hunt-and-peck these words in the dark before the dawn, I realize words can&#39;t tell this story.<br /><br />That&#39;s why I have been trying to construct &quot;cinematic narratives&quot; out of the archival files of environmental photographers like AT.<br /><br />Your last blog post, on screenplay construction, usefully compresses this thought into two words:<br /><br />11. Write cinematically.<br /><br />A photographer writes with a camera.TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-88651016741008179752013-03-01T23:27:19.557-08:002013-03-01T23:27:19.557-08:00Made me think of this chestnut:
In a Dark Time
I...Made me think of this chestnut:<br /><br />In a Dark Time<br /><br />In a dark time, the eye begins to see,<br />I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;<br />I hear my echo in the echoing wood--<br />A lord of nature weeping to a tree,<br />I live between the heron and the wren,<br />Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.<br /><br />etc.<br /><br />Theodore Roethke<br /><br />I love the magic of a big city. Yet, having grown up in Detroit and Saginaw (Roethke&#39;s hometown, too), both reloaded shells of what they were then, I wonder. <br /><br />nickareenohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08771839264204100867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-18011280253515383112013-03-01T14:30:20.419-08:002013-03-01T14:30:20.419-08:00whenever Fay and I would return to her place after...whenever Fay and I would return to her place after an excursion around Lower Manhattan in all of those years 1970 - 2003<br /><br />and this was many, many times going out in<br />broad daylight<br />we&#39;d have to make noises to scare the rats away from<br />the cans in front of her building....<br />these rats were as large as cats <br /><br />Fat Cats<br />Fat People<br />Fat Rats<br /><br /><br />Ed Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-11693343874873398252013-03-01T14:03:34.623-08:002013-03-01T14:03:34.623-08:00Vassilis, that&#39;s a long way down.
Its interes...Vassilis, that&#39;s a long way down.<br /><br />Its interesting to compare the early 70s Kodachrome environmental realism of the Documerica photographers with the later work done by the same photographers after the very brief span of this project (no more than two years, essentially &#39;72-&#39;74).<br /><br />Arthur Tress made many classic images, but over the years came to concentrate on the grotesque and surreal.<br /><br />Only four years after making these pictures Tress produced the image Jonathan mentions, <a href="http://www.photographersgallery.com/photo.asp?id=1976" rel="nofollow">The Singing Chair</a>.<br /><br />(Can that be a picture of someone who&#39;s been swimming in Jamaica Bay?)TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-60255351003155115332013-03-01T13:34:10.386-08:002013-03-01T13:34:10.386-08:00Of course, what else but an abandoned parachute ju...Of course, what else but an abandoned parachute jump for the once high and mighty.vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)http://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-20434639566165637052013-03-01T13:08:36.912-08:002013-03-01T13:08:36.912-08:00Really strange. Just been lying on the bed flickin...Really strange. Just been lying on the bed flicking through a book that my wife had left their earlier. Then I logged on to see this amazing post.<br /><br />The book?<br /><br />Arthur Tress Photographs 1956-2000.<br /><br />I especially like The Singing Chair.Jonathan Chanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03647746685252448938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-86360834557611668872013-03-01T11:46:54.827-08:002013-03-01T11:46:54.827-08:00Thanks, guys.
Arthur Tress grew up at Coney Islan...Thanks, guys.<br /><br />Arthur Tress grew up at Coney Island. So this portfolio would have to qualify as an insider view.<br /><br />Thoreau, a visionary. <br /><br />For my part, memories of a time of residence in New York City (some years before AT&#39;s documentation of the disastrous spillover of that monster city&#39;s affluence -- and effluents -- upon nearby natural environs -- pity the poor aquatic birds, their habitat made into a vast W.C.!), and of occasional brief visits since, leave me with no doubt as to the accuracy of Thoreau&#39;s percipient remarks.TChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-45850384810280044942013-03-01T08:07:02.142-08:002013-03-01T08:07:02.142-08:00Gluttony, not without reason called one of the dea...Gluttony, not without reason called one of the deadliest crimes against nature. <br /><br />A distant cousin of mine served in the Pacific during WW II. At the end of the fighting there was a great deal of surplus war materiel left on the island where he was stationed. The authorities figured it wasn’t worth shipping all that unused equipment back to the US, so his job was to drive the bulldozer that shoved everything off the wharf and into the Pacific Ocean. Then—and this is what most impressed the young boy who stood listening to his story on a humid afternoon in Charleston, South Carolina—then he set the throttle to automatic and let the bulldozer drive itself into the sea.<br /><br />Poetry we need now more than ever.Hazenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-6744748454469710332013-03-01T07:07:16.844-08:002013-03-01T07:07:16.844-08:00Tom,
All too sobering &#39;snapshots&#39; of what&...Tom,<br />All too sobering &#39;snapshots&#39; of what&#39;s become of what Thoreau saw on Staten Island a hundred years before what Arthur Tress found there <br /><br />&quot;When the white sky darkens over the city<br />Of ashes, far from the once happy valley,<br />. . .<br />The green ritual sanction<br />Of the poem has been cancelled.&quot;<br /><br />(wishing you a good and happy day)<br /><br />3.1<br /><br />light coming into sky above still black <br />ridge, waning gibbous moon above branch<br />in foreground, wave sounding in channel<br /><br /> composed snapshot, elements<br /> limited to aspects of<br /><br /> surface, uniform foreground,<br /> corresponding to base<br /><br />sunlight reflected in windblown channel,<br />shadowed green canyon of ridge above it<br /><br />STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.com